


spun by fate

by youatemytailor



Category: Black Sails
Genre: A lot of talking, Established Relationship, M/M, attempts at honesty, being super soft together, complete fluff, emotional pining, god i love them, silverflint, waking up together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-29
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2019-01-06 16:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12214299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youatemytailor/pseuds/youatemytailor
Summary: “I'm thinking about the day that we met,” Flint says.





	spun by fate

**Author's Note:**

> set between s3 and 4, aka my dream slice of time where they're soft and honest with each other.

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom it brings you together. But do so with all your heart.”

— Marcus Aurelius,  _Meditations_

* * *

“Silver?”

"Mmm?" 

“Do you believe in fate?”    

Slowly stirring, Silver tilts his chin up to squint at Flint, his eyes still half-mast with sleep. “What?”  

“Fate,” Flint says, pausing in the combing of his fingers through Silver’s hair to brush his thumb over Silver’s temple, warm and flushed where it was pressed into Flint’s chest. “Do you believe in it?”    

The haze in Silver’s gaze gradually clears. It is replaced with something sharp and alert; Flint can feel his spine go tense, can see his brow furrowing in the dim light.

“What sort of question is that?”

“Rather clear one, I’d say.”    

“I meant,” Silver says, drawing back, twisting until he can brace his hands against the cot on either side of Flint’s shoulders. “Why are you  _asking_  it?"   

It’s still so new, this brand of intimacy they’ve begun to share. It still leaves Flint off-balance to see Silver this early in the morning. To be able to watch him stretch, drifting unhurried into consciousness as though he’s unburdened, brand new. It is nothing short of miraculous every time; a rarity wholly undeserved. And the way Silver looks now, looming over him—close and warm and  _real_  despite the ridiculous fucking odds—it threatens to bring all sorts of nonsense to the tip of Flint’s tongue, threatens to spill a whole host of dangerous fucking things out of his over-eager mouth.    

"Forget it.” He shifts to move out of Silver’s caging arms. “It’s almost dawn. We should get up.”    

“ _Captain_ ,” Silver says. He won’t budge. He cranes his neck forward, trying to catch Flint’s eye again. “I thought we’d agreed not to lie to one another.”    

“Is that right?" Flint asks airily, trying to shove him off. "When did we agree to that?”    

“I don't know," Silver says. "I assumed it was implied when we become partners. Was I wrong?”    

Like sails being unfurled, Flint feels his halfhearted resolve relent entirely. It stands no chance against the gentle colour of Silver’s voice; the sturdy, uncompromising press of Silver into his side.  _Partners_ , Flint thinks, and something warm—hopeful,  _stupid_ —uncurls in his chest at the mere thought alone, replacing every instinct telling him to leave. It has him deflating with a sigh, instead, has him swinging his leg back onto the bed and settling in. Clearly satisfied with the turn of events, Silver lowers himself down until his chin is resting in the hollow of Flint’s throat.

He says nothing. Just stays draped over him skin to skin, but Flint can feel his quiet eyes. Patient. Waiting. It is a while before Flint trusts himself to speak again.

“I was thinking about the day that we met,” he says. That’s not all he was thinking about, but for now it’ll do.

Silver hums, content. Flint can feel it vibrate deep in his chest, as though it has already grown roots. “What about it?”    

“Why were you on that ship?”    

They’re allowed to do a lot of things, now. But asking direct questions about the past still isn’t one of them; Flint can feel him hesitate, a deliberate, measured breath of air before Silver shrugs, too easy. 

“Same reason I was on any other ship,” he says. When Flint doesn’t reply, he nuzzles the underside of Flint’s jaw, goading, his beard tickling the skin there. “Coin, Captain. Obviously.”    

Flint keeps his eyes on the ceiling and lets the quiet between them grow. 

Eventually Silver grows tired of it. "If you’d like to say something—”

“I thought that partners were supposed to be honest with each other.” 

After a beat, he can feel Silver huff into the hot skin of his throat. “All right,” he says, and swallows. “If you must know, I was running.”   

Somehow that feels like the truth. Closer, at any rate, than coin alone.  _Small victories_ , Flint thinks, and finally looks at him, but Silver seems content to just keep kissing up his neck, a blatant excuse to avoid his eyes. 

“Running from what?” Flint asks, and Silver sighs, before bracing his forehead against Flint’s sternum. 

“From all sorts of things,” he says, and rolls over. The reassuring weight of him disappears off of Flint’s chest and resettles on the inside of Flint’s bicep; the nape of Silver’s warm neck resting snug against it. “The weather, for one.”  

"The  _weather_ ,” Flint repeats, and Silver knocks his knee into Flint’s indignantly. 

“ _Don’t_. Don’t laugh. I am perfectly serious. The winters in the north, honestly—have you ever felt your eyelashes freeze?” 

The candle on the bedside table is flickering, about to burn out. The glow of it catches in Silver’s hair—black like oil, now tinted warm with light—trails down the bridge of his nose, gets caught in his damned eyelashes. Shadows play along the breadth of his cheekbones. 

“Can’t say that I have, no,” Flint says, feeling a bit dazed. 

“Really?” Silver glances back at him. “Not even in London?”    

There’s a heavy sort of pause. “Winter in London is different,” Flint says, at last, barely audible around something thick rising in his throat. “It’s dark. And wet. Hopeless, in some ways. Cold seeps into your bones before you know it’s even there.”    

Silver looks at him for a long moment before he hums again, low, and turns his gaze back to the ceiling. As always he understands more than he’s letting on. Flint can tell, by the way Silver’s fingers have started moving; running over his ribs in a way that is meant to soothe. They do. 

“At any rate,” Silver continues, "It was  _fucking freezing_ , as I said, and I was running. I sought shelter in a tavern. I promise you I was perfectly content to just have a drink. I wanted to sit there until I regained feeling in my fingers, until I could breathe again without ice in my lungs, but there was this loudmouthed  _fuck_  in the corner and he began to rudely intrude on my rather peaceful evening. Undefeated, he was, apparently. His pockets were overflowing with coin. He’d just been signed onto a merchant ship, and he couldn’t wait to spend his winnings in the new world. He was all set to be a King there, you see.”    

“Idiot,” Flint says, and earns a scratch of Silver’s blunt nails over his skin as a reward.    

“Exactly,” Silver says, his mouth curving like a scythe. “So I took him on. The poor sod had nothing to bet with after going three rounds with me. So, I suggested he throw his work order onto the pile. He resisted. I upped the stakes. Ten minutes later I was on a ship, heading over here.”    

Sunlight has begun to creep honey-gold into the room, filtering through the thatched ceiling overhead. It’s drifting up their feet, now, over their bare calves; illuminating the way Silver has thrown his leg over Flint’s knee, the arch of his foot brushing Flint’s opposite ankle. Flint feels warm all over, down to his bones. 

“If you’d lost,” Flint says, pressing his thumb into Silver’s wrist, “We wouldn’t be here. Doesn’t that bother you?”    

Silver gives a kind of shrug, using it as leverage to settle further into Flint’s side. He blindly catches Flint’s wondering hand and laces their fingers together. “Why would it? I know we’ve never had any occasion to play, but I’m the devil at cards, Captain. I was always going to beat him. The real danger came later; by the time I’d won, he was quite ready to kill me. Worse, the ship was leaving port. I almost didn’t make it.”  

In his mind’s eye, Flint can see it; Silver abandoning his winnings and running full speed through a port he’s never seen, as if the devil himself were chasing him.  

“But you did,” Flint says. He’s not sure he could keep the gratitude out of his voice even if he tried. 

It must be obvious, at any rate, because Silver’s grinning when he turns over. He presses his mouth to the vein running over Flint’s bicep. “But I did.”    

“And you still don’t believe in fate.”  

Silver goes rigid, then; his smile looks as though it’s about to slip. He buries it, into the crook of Flint’s arm before it does. “Again with the _fate_ ,” he says. He’d sound frustrated, if not for the desperate note taking shape in his voice. “Why are you fixating on this?”  

“I’m  _not_ —“  

There’s a huff, and then Silver bites down. “ _Partners_ ,” he says, and then kisses Flint’s stinging skin, right over the teeth marks of his own making. What he really means is  _honesty_ , and Flint can’t bring himself to be mad about it; not with the way Silver’s eyes are asking for a lot more than that.

“I don’t know who to thank for this,” Flint says, and Silver’s eyebrows shoot up, confused. A helpless kind of weight lifts off Flint’s chest when he finally,  _finally_  manages to say what he really means a moment later; “I don’t know who to thank for  _you_.”  

He doesn’t know what to expect, by way of an answer, revealing what he’s just revealed. Perhaps for Silver to make a joke, to brush it off, pretend he’d heard nothing at all. The last thing he expects is for Silver to  _smile_ —a small thing, an earnest thing—and say, "Captain, I  _cheated_.”   

“You—what?”  

“I cheated,” Silver repeats, nudging closer, the jut of his chin resting on Flint’s shoulder. “The man was blind drunk, sitting on a pile of gold and bragging about it. It was too good an opportunity to leave up to chance. So, I didn’t. I made sure I won.” 

“All right,“ Flint says, slowly, starting to frown. “Is that supposed to be an answer? Are you telling me I should thank  _you_  for you?”

Silver laughs, then, and it is a low and fucking  _wonderful_  sound that eases every ache in Flint’s perpetually tired body.

“I suppose you could,” Silver says. Now his eyes are smiling, too. “Because I don’t believe in fate. I chose to cross the ocean. I chose to join your crew. I chose— _this_ —all of it. What brought us together isn’t some unknowable, pre-ordained thing. It’s choice. I  _chose_  you. And I’d do it again. And again. And  _again_ —"

He’s been shuffling forwards on his elbows in increments and so now he’s pressed flush against Flint’s mouth, his bottom lip insinuating itself between Flint’s own. “Does that answer your question?” he asks, barely a whisper.  

Dizzy, suddenly, Flint can only nod, before he feels Silver’s hand trail up his shoulder and snake behind his neck. Before he feels Silver’s mouth curve up, before they’re kissing; languid and careless and  _honest_ , and  _this is beyond choice_ , Flint thinks, distantly, something like joy overtaking him, filling his chest to the brim. 

It is the last coherent thing he is able to think before Silver rolls on top of him and everything goes wonderfully, blissfully dark.    

**Author's Note:**

> i love their love. find me on [tumblr](http://annevbonny.tumblr.com) for more emotional silverflint content.


End file.
